Scotsman's No Budget Upgrade, Opinions please Tec heads....

[Para]

Ok Lads,

as some of you may know i have been having serious Pc issues of late, and despite a heroic effort by our own Yoda (cheers for the Mobo dude ) its got me back online again but the only game that the quickly cobbled together pc can run ok is CSS as the donated mobo can only handle a basic GPU and CPU which totally rules out BF3 as my good old rig could only just run it before my mobo blew !

i am totally skint and deperate to get back online again and i have spent the last few weeks scouring eBay for a suitable upgrades to a LG1155 system but the prices are just stupid i could virtually buy new parts for the prices the second hand ones are making just now ! GAH............

BUT....... i found a guy selling the following system as a bundle

Core2Quad socket 775 Q9550 2.9Ghs 1333Fsb
Asus Rampage Extreme Mobo Specs: http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_ ... e_Extreme/
4Gb DDR3 Corsair dominator 1333Mhz
Siberian Tiger Cpu Water Cooler
all in perfect working order and in origional boxes.

And the price i actually paid for all that after some hard bidding ??..........
£137.61
all that for less than the price of a reasonable LGA1155 mobo and at the moment a secondhand Q9550 on ebay will cost you £100-130 quid, and that Rampage board alone is an utter beast with two Pci express lanes running at full 16x X 16x that i can put my two HD6770's into and get the best out of them they only ran at 8X in my old mobo,

i have not had the time to assemble the whole system yet but i am hoping its gonna run BF3 really smooth, once compleatly assembled my rig should look like this:

Core2Quad Q9550 775 (replaces C2D E6700)
Asus Rampage extreme 775 (Replaces dead Asus P5WDH Delux mobo)
4Gb Corsair DDR3 1333Mhz (Replaces 8Gb Corsair DDR2 800Mhz)
Two ATI HD6770's in Crossfire (both running @ 16x)
Corsair 620w Psu
Corsair Force GT 120Gb SSD (Boot)
Corsair Extreme 32Gb SSD (BF3 Drive)
Two Seagate 500Gb HDD's (storage)

Now i know this is still an old 775 system but at under £140 this is about the only upgrade i can afford !

So can any of you Tec heads see any possible Bottlenecks in the above rig ? and or give me any tips on how to get the best from it ?

Cheers Again !!

[shutteh]

sounds like a really good bundle if it works fine.

is the cpu the newest edition E0 ? then you can overclock it to 4 GHz with a good Aircooling! think the watercooling system should good enough for it.

in the tests you will see a big difference in your performance!

[Para]

Yeah it is the latest E0 model shutty,
i dont think i am gonna use the watercooler for a start, to begin with i am just gonna use my Zalman cps9000 cpu cooler and take it from there, i have a decent Lian-Li case and the air cooling in it is great so i am hoping it will be enough without using water !

[Para]

HOLY SHIT !

i never in a million years expected such a performance boost from an old LGA775 system, this old mofo flys !!! so far its very stabe, best £137.61 i have ever spent on pc parts ! i can only imagine what a i5/i7 rig goes like ! the old girl looks like this now:

Q9550 2.9ghz 775 (eBay Special)
Asus Rampage Extreme mobo (eBay Special)
4GB DDR3 Corsair 1333Mhz Ram (eBay Special)
Two ATI HD 6770's in Crossfire
Corsair 620w PSU
Razer AC-1 Soundcard
Hauppauge DVB TV Card
Corsair Force GT 120Gb SSD (boot)
Corsair Extreme 32Gb SSD (BF3)
Two Seagate 500Gb HDD's (storage)

windows experiance index rates it at 7.3 7.3 7.4 7.4 7.4 7.4 overall 7.3 up from 6.1 with the E6700

BF3 is a totally differend beast alltogether i have no idea how i managed to play it before, it was a stuttering, grinding mess with everything at the minimum ! i got most settings on high with a couple on ultra and low-medium AA & AF. still getting a steady 40-60fps !
Bring it On.........................

[shutteh]

yeah i told ya the q9550 is a fucking great cpu... in the most tests like a i7 920

and you will feel the faster DDR3 ram ... makes a lot of different if you use 800 mhz clock or 1333. maybe you can try to overlock it to 1600 without any different voltage.

[Para]

still gobsmacked at the difference its made

everything is at stock speeds and voltages just now till i make sure the secondhand parts are reliable, but even at stock settings its quick, even from pushing the power button to windows loaded with all apps & gadgets takes only a few seconds ! HUZZAH................

[Gavac220]

Similar setup to mine now Para bar the graphics card (HD6950 running as a HD6970). Same mobo board (Near enough) and I have a Q6600 Go at 3.5GHz on air. Running BF3 on High with no stutters at all. Still can't justify an upgrade, as it plainly doesn't need it for any games out there while I'm still playing on a single 24" HD Monitor.

Good purchases mate!

[Para]

yeah agreed Gav, this old 775 setup should still have a year or two in it yet if this upgrade is anything to go by !